Welcome to Adam Kraus's random mixing of essays, commentary, and humor, all presented in a blog format. Hopefully you will find it interesting.

6.23.2004

Write your own book

Even though I haven't read the book yet, I was very disappointed by this review of Bill Clinton's memoir. The reviewer seems more interested in finding out the juicy details of Clinton's scandals than he is about evaluating how well the book transmits Clinton's experience as president. Almost everything he finds wrong with the book relates to the scandals and their inadequate coverage:

In truth, it is hardly an edge-of-your-seat experience. Throughout its leisurely 957 pages, however, every facet of Clinton's complex, nuanced and sometimes maddening personality is on display. He is by turns introspective and willfully obtuse, expansive and curt. One moment, he forces the reader on a joyless march through an arid policy debate. The next, he offers up a raw, confessional moment that almost makes the book seem worth the $35 price of admission...
For such a big book, there are a lot of things curiously missing. Clinton denies sexually harassing Paula Jones, but doesn't give his account of what did, and didn't, happen during that infamous hotel encounter...

This is not a serious enough review of a what is meant to be a serious memoir. Does the reviewer really expect Clinton to produce something worthy of the tabloids?

And though he says more than once in the book that he knows he let people down, he never seems to grasp just how much anger and disappointment he caused—not just among his enemies, but among those who believed in him most. But then, did anyone really expect Clinton to make himself the villain of his own book?

Clinton is an interesting and inspiring guy. I am much more interested in hearing about what it was like to be president, how he got there, and what he was thinking along the way. I would not give the book a lukewarm review because he failed to condemn himself.